Over the years I have noticed that many bites are indeed alcohol related, no surprise there, but many are children. Some reports say as many as half are children. It is not rare, either, for snake handling preachers in Virginia and W. Virginia to die from rattler bites. Children are the only innocents here, IMO.

I have been extremely blessed not to have been bitten. I am in snaky habitat much of the time, while farming here in Georgia and S. Carolina, and have had some real close calls with rattlers. The last close call was three years ago. I killed a big canebrake rattler under a center pivot, in tall thick ryegrass early one morning while starting up a pivot. I credit the fact that I saw him to a dream I had, two nights previous, about a rattler. It was on my mind and I was looking carefully. Ordinarily I don't look that close.

An old rattler is not aggressive at all, tho'. They will run if given half a chance. If you're in a place where there is food for them (mice, rats), be extra careful.

SRH

May God bless America and those who defend her.